Grade Inflation

[psilovethomas]

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What veterinary schools are known for grade inflation? In general, is there a lot of grade inflation during the clinical phase vs the pre-clinical phase?

 

[Minnerbelle]

How are you defining grade inflation?

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Some places don't grade for clinics; it is P/F. Which makes your GPA set after year 3. Too bad for those of us who excel better out of the classroom environment 🙁

 

[psilovethomas]

How are you defining grade inflation?

I don't have a great definition for it....but here is an example:
A GPA of 3.6 at one school can have a class rank of 10/100, and a GPA at a different school can have a 3.95 and still be ranked 10/100

 

[cowgirla]

I don't have a great definition for it....but here is an example:
A GPA of 3.6 at one school can have a class rank of 10/100, and a GPA at a different school can have a 3.95 and still be ranked 10/100

That's not necessarily inflation. The ratings depend on what the other GPAs in the class are and how individuals perform, not any false inflation made by "grading easy" or curves or whatever . Even from class to class within a school that can vary- for example, one class at our school has numerous 4.0s, so someone could have a 3.90 and be #15 or whatever in the class. In a different class, someone with a 3.7 can be in the top ten. Same classes, same professors, etc, just a year or two apart. Even with grades based on student performance, you'll still see plenty of variation from class to class and school to school.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I don't have a great definition for it....but here is an example:
A GPA of 3.6 at one school can have a class rank of 10/100, and a GPA at a different school can have a 3.95 and still be ranked 10/100

I guess that's where my question came from. You can't really say if some vet schools are grade inflated compared to others unless you knew the grade distributions of the schools being compared. Not sure anyone is privy to that kind of info. Though i suppose if everyone starts shouting out their gpa/class rank and school, we may get a vague idea... But I'm not sure how useful or pleasant that would be.

Why do you ask?

 

[psilovethomas]

Thanks everyone. I was just listening to a presentation to day about applying for residencies, and it mentioned class rank being most important grade wise because of grade inflation. I was just a little confused, and wondered how common it was in veterinary school.

 

[nyanko]

Some places don't grade for clinics; it is P/F. Which makes your GPA set after year 3. Too bad for those of us who excel better out of the classroom environment 🙁

Clinics grading here is pretty brutal. You can get an A, B+, B-, D or fail. That's all.

And they are really stingy with the A's (as it should be) from what I hear - on most rotations it really only is the top 10% of people. I anticipate a handful of people in my class will be getting their first B's in their entire lives in clinics. 🙄

 

[Minnerbelle]

So does everyone basically end up with B+ or B- in most rotations then? That would make for really hard to interpret class ranks for the internships/residencies that care

 

[nyanko]

So does everyone basically end up with B+ or B- in most rotations then? That would make for really hard to interpret class ranks for the internships/residencies that care

Essentially yeah. They also told us that on our final transcripts there would be 3 sets of class ranks: one for years 1-3, one for year 4, and one for all 4 years combined. It'll be interesting to collect that information, I think.

Honestly it's difficult enough to interpret class ranks for our class now. I think our old curriculum at UC Davis was definitely one of the ones they talk about for grade inflation - the whole spread is pretty much a cluster from 3.0-4.0 from what I hear from People Who Know Things. I'm pretty near the middle of the class with a GPA round the middle of that range so I believe it.